Abstract
This poem examines the emotional and moral dimensions of perinatal loss and grief. The speaker juxtaposes experiences of loss, questioning societal narratives that judge the value of what, or who, should be grieved. The poem weaves together the personal and the political, the domestic and the cosmic, and it recognizes the impossibility of fully rationalizing loss.The juxtaposition of a kitten, the speaker's own child, and the distant victims of war underlines how arbitrary and yet universal are grief and love. The poem critiques the tendency to rationalize or hierarchize suffering through contrasting imagery and overlays of empathy, it foregrounds the unrepeatable significance of even the smallest lives.
Rosaleen Greene-Smith Keefe
Old Dominion University
Recommended Citation
Greene-Smith Keefe, Rosaleen
(2025)
"Io,"
Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine: Vol. 10:
Iss.
2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/vol10/iss2/6